The healthcare industry is facing enormous workforce challenges, with the average hospital turning over 106% of its workforce in the last five years. Such high turnover has staggering cost implications. Among those costs are expenses related to credential compliance. And if the urgency to recruit new employees causes organizations to make any mistakes related to credentialing compliance, fines from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) can further elevate those costs.
During a featured session at the Becker’s Healthcare Human Resources + Talent Virtual Event sponsored by Propelus, Julie Walker, CEO of Propelus, moderated a discussion with Warren Mott, VP for HR service delivery and technology at Ochsner Health (Jefferson, La.), and Valerie Wiegele, director for regulatory assurance at Providence (Renton, Wash.). The panel discussion – called Enhancing the employee experience: Navigating HR & workforce compliance in the digital world – centered on strategies for transforming compliance processes in ways that remove friction and improve the employee experience.
Four key insights were:
- The employee experience is significantly impacted by the credential compliance processes. Two of the biggest recruitment challenges organizations face are real-time tracking of licensure credentials and background checks. While these processes are necessary for initial and ongoing compliance, putting employees through them can create friction. “Candidates and team members expect to have a smooth onboarding and employment journey,” Mr. Mott said.
- Automated platforms are emerging as a key tool in organizations’ compliance arsenal. Platforms, which offer automated license and certification verification, represent a modern compliance solution. By simplifying and streamlining compliance processes, platforms can ease the friction associated with labor-intensive manual compliance checks, shorten the time to fill roles and improve the clinician experience. “To ease the way for our caregivers, technology needs to be a blip on the screen,” Ms. Wiegele said. “Caregivers don’t need to be bogged down with the technology.”
Ms. Walker noted that compliance platforms can also provide critical support in identifying additional credentials to help team members grow professionally. “As much as it is about speed in ensuring [an employee] has the right credentials for their current job, it’s also about supporting them in their professional journey.”
- Platform solutions also have important benefits for HR teams. By streamlining license verification and ongoing credential monitoring, platforms such as EverCheck by Propelus, which integrates seamlessly with organizations’ HR information systems, help elevate HR operations. This elevation occurs by reducing the administrative burden on HR team members, empowering them to focus on higher-value work instead of manual compliance processes.
- Health systems need technology partners with whom they can collaborate. That includes assessing whether a potential compliance technology vendor can work well with the organization’s other vendors by integrating their systems so they can “talk” to each other. It also includes agility and readiness to adapt to healthcare organizations’ changing priorities and circumstances.
“You need a vendor that’s going to be agile and that’s going to shift with you as priorities and initiatives change — a partner who’s walking along with our organization is incredibly important,” Ms. Wiegele said.
The insights shared showed how organizations can embrace digital-first strategies to transform compliance processes for both employees and HR teams. Propelus, which provides industry-leading healthcare solutions for dynamic workforce compliance, helps organizations streamline their workforce compliance management. For more workforce compliance insights and best practices, visit Propelus.
